Hello my blog-fans, blog-viewers and the people that have clicked on this by mistake. I hope that you are keeping well.
I know that so many people* have been asking: "Hey! What the bloody heck Matt! Where are all your fantastic blogs. You haven't done one in ages. If you don't write a blog soon - I will go bananas"**.
So I haven't done a blog in months. I haven't done a blog THIS Year. I'm sorry. 2016 must be a shitty year thus far because of it. How exactly been have you been coping without my witty observations and asinine contributions to society ? I don't know how you deal with it without me***.
What exactly have I been up to? Lots of stuff ****. If you are friends with me on facebook, you will have inevitably been bombarded by me on Facebook about the stuff I’ve been up to. Since January I’ve been running several comedy clubs in Kent, I’ve written an Experimental Comedy show about Game Of Thrones, I’ve written my hour long special Vegetari-Man and I’ve been doing a podcast as well (Matt Hoss: Gig Antic available on ITunes – thanks for asking).
 |
| Available on ITunes. The link is at the bottom. #ProductPlacement. |
So I thought I would do a mini-series of blogs to make up for this fact. I love writing blogs, I have plenty I have saved as drafts, but I haven’t had the time to sit down and write them. There were some humdingers too. Maybe I will upload them in due time.
But the time has come. But what will this mini-series be about? As you know, I perform stand-up regularly and it is something that I genuinely enjoy, and I think it suits me more than anything I’ve ever tried before. It’s all that I want to do, but I used to do many various art forms, like poetry, writing music and acting: all of them I wanted to take to a professional level, like I want to do with Stand-up.
I’ve always been really interested in performing my whole life, but I pursued many other forms before arriving at Stand-up, So I thought it would be interesting to look at my process of becoming a stand-up. Why did I try other avenues of performance before stand-up and how exactly did I get here? How did my previous experience impact my stand-up?
So I will be doing a small series of blogs which each focus on my performance history and how they affected me along the way. Plus there are tonnes of funny stories along the well. This series is called Born to Perform. And this blog focuses entirely on my acting talent!
Here we go.
I used to think that I was a pretty decent actor. I always really enjoyed acting and learning lines, and playing these imaginary moments. But I think my abilities weren’t as great as I thought, I never got the big roles, but I kinda got the ones that suited me- as a person. Which in anything, defeats the point of acting - doesn't it? For example, I once played a character in a play called Artist’s Impression by Josh Hinds, called Noel. Noel was an awkward man who was awkwardly in love with a girl and was too awkward to tell her that he loved her.
I really didn’t have to act too hard.
The costume designer asked if I could wear clothes which made me look like I didn’t know how to dress without y mother. I was wearing green chinos, uncombed hair and a purple Spiderman t-shirt. Tick – Mission Accomplished. I always come dressed in character.
This is similar to a character I played in an immersive theatre company which did speed dating with unique characters called You Had Me At Hello. I played Barry: a video game player, comic book reader and virginity enthusiast.
Barry was literally me, but with a slightly sillier voice. And the same hit with the ladies.
I believe I wanted to be an actor for a long time. But I now realise that I wanted to perform, but acting seemed like the most logical, but the only experience of performance I had as a child was acting in school plays. I felt like it was the only avenue to perform. But it gave me great enjoyment as it was an outlet to perform.
I did find with working as a group, didn’t quite fit my style all the time. I love stand-up because all of the work is on you. You are the single person orchestrating it all and you have total free range to say what you like. With acting you are constrained to the limits of what a character may or may not say. In stand-up, I’m only limited by my imagination. And limited by, y’know, basic hygiene levels and standard levels of decency.
In all fairness, I’ve not been exclusively been acting classy, period drama characters: I’ve played some very obscene roles. Very PG-13. For example I played Xanthius, a slave in the Ancient Greek Comedy: Wasps by Aristophanes. It was a hyper-sexualised play. In the first scene, I cradled my fellow slave friend (played by a lovely man called James Whiley who was severely uncomfortable with this) and my character proceeds to sleep-hump his character. Exhilarating introduction to the show.
Since we were slave boys, our costumes were just a loincloth. I was very naked throughout the play. My character's costume also had a running visual gag throughout the play. Can you guess what it was?
There is more than one big nob in the photo. WAHEY #Lads.
My character had a very big penis. An emphasis on the “CHARACTER”. This was the tone for the remainder of the play.
Two of my flatmates in first year came along to see this play, and walked out in the interval.
It was a fun show.
So what I thought I would do, was take you, my dear reader, through some of my acting highlights. If you are a booking agent, get your pen and paper ready. If you are not: become a booking agent and see above.
I’ve played a multitude of roles, which I would love to discuss with you in my blog. I’ve had to whittle it down, but here are some of my acting highlights.
Dr. Chasuble in The Importance of Being Earnest.
So I performed this in my first year and first term at university. I threw myself at many auditions as I could get. Once, to impress a girl, a signed up a for a Musical Theatre audition despite lacking any ability in singing (despite being in a musical comedy duo at the moment). The girl was worth the potential embarrassment. They asked of me to bring a musical for us to sing along to. I chose Nothing But A Good Time by Poison (it's technically in Rock Of Ages).
I gave an underwhelming rendition as I was out of key, forgot the lyrics and kicked over chairs like the rock god I am. It was one hell of a performance, as I bounced around the room, jumping off stage and coughing the chorus when I was out of breath. I didn’t receive a callback. Nor the girl.
The only part I got, which I was over the moon about, for The Importance Of Being Earnest. I actually think this a monumental foothold for brewing my comic potential. I met some people there who would influence, mould and kick-start my inner-clown. Three guys in particularly who would make a profound impact (Jonathan Maltz, Gersom De Koning Tan and Dan Rhodes) we also acting in the play. The directors helped bring out Chasuble, as we portrayed him as bumbling, loveless fool, attempting to gain the favour of Ms Prism.
I told you: I never have to act too hard.
If you wanted to take it deeper, the directors (Julia Ripke and Clare Dudley) helped cultivate this nerdy awkward persona, which oozed out of me, but helped vocalise suitable onstage. They found my clown and stapled it to the character. This, again, was unforeseen step towards stand-up and being a version of me onstage.
The actress playing Ms Prism, Chasuble’s love interest, switched half way through due to unforeseen circumstances. I had never gotten a kiss through acting. It is the only reason why I took up performing: for the off chance of feigned affection. I thought if I became an actor, at one point, I would get at least one kiss. I'd settle with holding hands.
The new actress for Prism came in, and I was fond of her, So I attempted to persuade the directors that it was my Chasuble’s character arc that he must get a kiss at the end of the show (which he does). Narratively it makes sense. However The New Prism did not like the idea. She particularly did not like me. Ms Prism, once, a warm and flirty character, was changed into a heartless and grumpy person who had nothing but contempt for my character. She entirely changed the character just because she really didn’t like me, which shone through the character. Now THAT IS ONSTAGE CHEMISTRY.
I was electric. The end of the play has everyone getting together, and my advances as Chasuble ends with Prism flatly declining me brutally. It was very funny and it was a visual representation of what i try and get my stand-up persona to get across. A really fun role.
Creon and Guard #1 in OEDIPUS REX:
Oedipus The King, the play about where the King Of Thebes accidentally murders his dad and banged his mam #Player #Slayer. This was done for my Year 12 Drama piece and I was allowed to perform at the Georgian Theatre in Richmond (which was one of my dreams at the time). So our class had to pull together and put on a performance of this fantastic tragedy.
It is one of my all-time favourite tales. It has incest, murder and deceit: it’s essentially like Game Of Thrones but with less tits. As mentioned earlier, I really wanted a role which I could showcase my acting emotions (like kissing a girl onstage).
I feel a small conspiracy grown against me whilst writing this. In none of my roles I was cast as the lead. None of them let me kiss the girls. But no- I was stuck being the loveless support act- as I played Creon: The Queen’s Brother and right hand of the king. If anything I was jealous of Oedipus. Oedipus was getting laid more with his mother more than I could get kissed onstage. How I yearned to be the incestuous king. Alas I was Creon. I wish I could be incest.*****
I doubled up as both Creon and the Guard. The only change was how my hair was positioned at the time. Professional.
So in this part of the play, The Guard escorts the shepherd who delivers the shepherd to Oedipus’ palace, delivering the conclusion that Oedipus is actually the son of the woman he is currently married to. However to get the Shepherd to speak, my character had to twist the arm of the shepherd to interrogate hims successfully.
It wasn’t a major moment of the show, however a picture was taken at this moment and this is what it kinda looked like:
This is unfortunately angled photo was published in the school newspaper and heavily commented on about many people who didn’t have access to any of the context. It was simply that picture which was printed with no caption whatsoever. It certainly beats getting a kiss onstage.
I did find the show as a whole really enjoyable, but I wasn’t at the helm of the ship. I felt like a minor figure in this piece, despite how cool I made Creon be. He rolled a cigarette at one point. I have never smoked in my life. I loved performing, but even at this moment, I didn’t feel that acting was quite for me (although I didn't articulate it until later. I pursued if not for a lack of trying).
But it is nothing quite like this final one:
Gunther in CABARET MACKBETH.
This is easily the most outrageous play I’ve ever acted in. And the funniest one. Cabaret Mackbeth was 1930’s cabaret version of Mackbeth, featuring drag queens, a pregnant dominatrix and my character called Gunther. Gunther was in a double act with Helmut. Together, we were german Rent-boys who assassinate Banquo by fisting him to death whilst wearing a PVC-Lederhosens.
My drama teacher made me wear this. She wrote the script and she made me wear this. She wasn’t fired. All my friends and family came along to this. It was the last time they came to see me perform.
But this role was delightfully weird, and it unleashed comic potential. I loved the outrageous nature of it and loved the developing process of comedy. I didn’t know it, but this was a building block for my stand-up career. It was liberating in provoking an audience into reacting a certain way, by the way I dressed up, by the way I present myself, and by the way i could amalgamate visceral images by saying something onstage.
I now do a routine about wearing this suit- whilst wearing it onstage. This performance literally made me want to do stand-up. If you want to see me talk more about it (as I’m holding back some nice stories), you should come and see me live. And partially naked.
If that hasn’t convinced you to hire me as an actor- I don’t know what will.
END OF PART 1.
Thank you for reading this- Part 2 two will be coming soon!
PART 2 Will be aboutbeing a musician and trying to be a rock star.
IF YOU LIKE THE BLOG PLEASE LIKE AND SHARE IT PLEASE.
Also please check out my podcast- Matt Hoss: Gig Antic as well. Available on Itunes:
* One person.
** I'm paraphrasing. That's what I reckon they said.
*** Please read with rolling eyes and a sarcastic tone.
**** Isn’t this awful like Daniel Kitson. It is. Bridget Christie does this too. But not in a blog, so it’s a homage not plagiarism. Which is a rough quote from Stewart Lee. You’re welcome.
*****Do not take out of context.
No comments:
Post a Comment